Expand preschool, not federal role

Preschool is enjoying quite the popularity boom. Admirers range from President Obama to liberal mayors to conservative governors. Last month, Obama called for making "high-quality pre-K available to every 4-year-old." New York Mayor Bill de Blasio wants to do it by taxing the city's wealthiest residents. Last week, Gov. Rick Snyder, R-Mich., proposed spending millions more for preschool, joining a herd of GOP governors who've launched or expanded such programs.

The bipartisan enthusiasm is supported by education research. Pre-K can give children, particularly disadvantaged kids, a leg up. But before politicians throw billions more dollars on preschool, they ought to spend more time looking at what works.

Rigorous evaluations are amazingly rare. The lack of evidence means a lot of money is wasted, and many well-intentioned programs fail the children they are designed to help.

Consider Head Start, the iconic federal granddaddy of preschool programs. After a half-century and hundreds of billions of dollars, Head Start is at best a mediocrity. A recent study found that the beneficial effects tend to fade by third grade.

This doesn't mean, as some critics assert, that preschools are worthless. For one thing, Head Start is not a monolith, but a collection of programs run by 1,600 providers across the country, some better than others.

In the past three years, Head Start has evaluated providers and required low performers to compete with new providers for federal dollars. Good.

More relevant, some state and local programs have shown long-lasting gains. According to University of Minnesota researchers, $1 investment in a high-quality program returns $7 in greater school success, reduced delinquency and crime, and increased lifetime earnings.

Successes have come even from unlikely starts. New Jersey's Abbott Preschools began when a federal judge ordered the state to provide high-quality pre-K to low-income students. Abbott, which built on existing programs, spends a comparatively high $13,000 per pupil and provides one teacher for every 15 students. Unlike Head Start, which is saddled with providing health and other social services to students' families, Abbott focuses on the classroom. Teachers are trained and receive ongoing coaching. Multiple evaluations are embedded in the system.

And the program works, according to rigorous studies, raising achievement in language, literacy, math and science with gains lasting through fifth grade. Fewer students are repeating grades or requiring special education classes.

Other successes exist in Boston, San Francisco, Miami and elsewhere. So, sure, expand preschool, but limit the federal role. Washington can set incentives and identify best practices. States and localities can do the rest.

Well-trained teachers and smaller class sizes are common to successful programs. Too little energy, however, has gone into evaluating teacher training or curricula. That can be done only through rigorous, randomized studies. Like students, preschool strategies need to be tested.

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Expand preschool, not federal role

Preschool is enjoying quite the popularity boom. Admirers range from President Obama to liberal mayors to conservative governors. Last month, Obama called for making '